musings of Mother Hood

Wednesday March 30, 2005

What is Sleep Bruxism?

Sleep Bruxism is a stereotyped movement disorder characterized by grinding or clenching of the teeth during sleep.  The disorder has also been identified as nocturnal bruxism, nocturnal tooth-grinding and nocturnal tooth-clenching.

What are the Symptoms?

The symptoms of Sleep Bruxism are tooth-grinding or tooth-clenching during sleep that may cause:

• abnormal wear of the teeth
• sounds associated with bruxism (It's about as pleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard!)
• jaw muscle discomfort

How serious is the disorder?

Some people have episodes that occur less than nightly with no evidence of dental injury or impairment of psychosocial functioning. And others experience nightly episodes with evidence of mild impairment of psychosocial functioning. Yet others have nightly episodes with evidence of dental injury, tempomandibular (jaw) disorders, other physical injury or moderate or severe impairment of psychosocial functioning.

When someone with suspected sleep bruxism has a polysomnographic test there is evidence of jaw muscle activity during the sleep period and the absence of abnormal movement during sleep.  Other sleep disorders may be present at the same time, e.g., obstructive sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome.

Wednesday March 30, 2005

I only THOUGHT I would get out of CW with no drama last night.  What happened was a moral dilemma of sorts-- tell me what you think about this...

A waitress, who will remain unnamed, waited on a group of 6 or 8 people in Billiards for several hours.  One of the women in this group is a regular and comes in every Tuesday with business associates/clients and whatnot.  These people drop several hundred dollars in the bar on a regular basis.  The tab came to $169something.  The woman paying the tab wrote the waitress a check for $175.  For those of you who know anything about tipping (there is a special place in heaven for you, btw) that is less than 10% and is a fairly crappy tip.  So the waitress comes into the kitchen waving the check around and bitching about what a cheap-ass this woman is and how long she'd waited on them and how unfair it was, blahdy blah.  The bartender, Lisa, immediately hands out the advice that the waitress should go ask them if they got bad service and find out what the problem is.  So the waitress rushes back out to billiards.  Long story short-- The woman is completely humiliated as the waitress confronts her about the tip in front of her biggest corporate client whom she's been trying to get to come out with her for a year.  She spent 10 minutes in the bathroom crying about it with a different waitress.  I get her attention as she's leaving, as I didn't want her to leave thinking no one knew about it and nothing would be done about it-- I have waited on this girl several times, we know each other by name.  I apologize to her about the situation, tell her that I will talk to the waitress about it.  She assures me that she'll be back, that she's always had good service at Cool Water and that this won't keep her from coming in again-- which shocked me-- if that happened to me, I would SO not be back.  So I go in the kitchen and inform this waitress how inappropriate I thought it was and how embarrassed I am for her.  I know how Rick would feel about it and I know that if he knew about it, it would be her last shift.  She feels terrible, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that she felt the need to confront a customer about what she felt was an inadequate tip.  My humble opinion is that that is outrageously inappropriate.

The story gets better.  The girl calls Cool Water about 20 minutes later and tells me how impressed she was with the way I handled it and that she thinks I have management potential, she asks me about school and my major and how long I've worked at CW, yada yada.  She offers me a job.  She works for Tyson, doing I don't know what. She said, even if I just want some experience over the summer, blah blah.  She gives me her phone number and tells me she'll bring me a card when she comes in next week.

It's really too bad that I have little interest in graduating as that was the first of two job offers last night.  The other was from this guy Miles who works for Robert Half International which is the world's first and largest specialized financial recruiting service.  His job is to find accountants for different projects for large corporations.  They have exclusive auditing contracts with companies like Microsoft.  He brought me this big portfolio of information and a stack of business cards in case I can refer anyone to him and get a referral fee. 

I hate school.

This is a picture of Beth wearing a bunny mask we found behind the bar.

 

Tuesday March 29, 2005

For those of you who appreciate absolutely useless entertainment trivia... i was watching "Jennifer Love Hewitt - Revealed" today.  For those of you children of the 80s, she was on Kids Inc on the Disney Channel as "Love Hewitt" along with a girl named Stacy.  They interviewed Stacy for the Revealed show and I thought she looked familiar.  I googled her and it turns out-- she's Stacy Ferguson or "Fergie" from the Black Eyed Peas.  If any of you knew that already and I'm just behind, then FINE. Otherwise, there you go, useless trivia for you to enjoy.

Monday March 28, 2005

Ohmygod I was beside John Henry at the stoplight today on College!

The only thing goin at work last week is really that Kelly's pops died and he went to Colorado for the funeral, Rick's family was on vacation for 10 days, Dave just bought a pizza place in Springdale, Autumn has a full-time job at the University, and I'm supposed to be a student... Everybody was stretched a little thin.  PLUS, one of our full-time cooks got fired, and it was Easter-- which is a busy day for us.  Good thing I took the weekend off

This weekend, I went to the horse track in Hot Springs, which was fun.  We only did really well on one race the whole day.  This friend of Jeff's named "Big Daddy" (whose wife's name is Sarah Martin, of all things) was giving us horses to bet on.  I think it was the 6th race (out of 11) and he gave us a long shot with 14-1 odds.  Since it was a long shot we only bet $2 across.  Our long shot horse won the race! Jeff was dancing around telling me he was going to kiss the people in the box next to us. That race we cashed about $50. Things went downhill after that and liquor is really expensive at the track so we left after the 10th race.  We didn't exactly break even and it was storming but it was fun-- and I have no excuse for having no pictures to share! There'll be a next time. Good weekend.  Rainy and cold, but good.

Side note: We rented Saw this weekend.   Mixed reviews.  I have yet to watch the director's commentary so I'll probably have more to say after that, but it was alright.  Probably woulda been better on the big screen.  The acting was absolutely worthless, but the premise of the movie was genius.  If they'd had more money to sink into it, probably would have been that much better. 

George Costanza: Do you ever get down on your knees and thank God you know me and have access to my dementia?

Friday March 25, 2005

Work has been pretty eventful lately.  So Tuesdays are my days to manage at CW.  It's really easy, more like babysitting than anything else-- I don't bother anyone about anything, things get done, everybody's happy.  Well this Tuesday, things were different.  The kitchen boys decided that it was boring and slow in the kitchen and they would go play pool.  This is not a big deal and I usually let them and don't say a word.  Well, Dave (the Chef and Kitchen Manager) was in (off-the-clock) playing pool, so to look like the responsible manager I'm not, I went in to the computer and put John Henry and Matt on break, which means they are not getting paid.  I didn't say anything to them.  This means that at the end of the night when they go to clock out, the computer will ask them if they want to come back from break and then they'll have to come ask me to fix it.  It was all in the evil plan to prove a point and I had every intention of adjusting their hours at the end of the night-- no problem.... well. John Henry decided that he wasn't going to play nice and came back to the office and got in my face, yelling and cussing and threatening and whatnot.  Well, since John Henry is a convicted felon and a generally shady person, I decided the safest thing for me to do was diffuse the situation and let him leave.  I adjusted his hours, while he continued to berate me with things like "you're not a real manager, you're just a fuckin key holder!, you can't tell me what to do" "i don't care if dave is here, fuck dave, dave can go to hell" "no one around here follows the rules, I don't know why you're giving me shit" you get the idea... and he leaves.  Matt's just standing there with a dumb look on his face like "I don't really know what just happened" I calm down a little and go find Dave.  I fill him in and he tells me not to worry, that John Henry will not be on the schedule next week. I come in the next day to find out that John Henry is not going to be fired after this week's schedule is over, he's gone.  Which is kinda a double-edged sword-- I'm glad that Dave supported me and fired him, but now I may or may not have a shady unabomber-type after me for getting him fired.  And we all know how I like to worry about things.  So I'm a little worried about the whole thing, but everybody at work seems to be backing me up.  We'll see what Rick says when he gets back from vacation.

Quote of the day.......                                                          

ChiquitaQ (11:39:18 PM): I just put lotion on, and so I can't open my chapstick!!
ChiquitaQ (11:39:29 PM): this is an emergency!

Tuesday March 22, 2005

Happy Tuesday.  Another useless and uneventful day in the office.  No one is here today but me.  Scott, Peter, Kelsey, and Janet are all gone.  Viola and I are the only ones here and neither of us want to be.... I'm totally leaving early.

So I left my sunroof open Sunday night and there was a tsunami.  It's been Spring Break since yesterday and has been cloudy, gloomy, rainy, and downright blustery since just about then.  Happy Spring Break to all of us staying in Fayetteville. Bleh.

Some drama last night at CW.  First, Jacqueline, the 17 year old-married-pregnant hostess whom I adore went into labor.  Then, it was a painfully slow night and the kitchen boys got bored and started rooting around for cake/brownie/cookie recipes.  This made all of us a little skeptical and we just waited to see what they were going to make.  So they made this plate of brownies

and put it out on the counter for everyone to take one.  Immediately, Autumn and I are thinking: 1. why would they make us brownies just to be nice? 2. but why would they make us pot brownies and waste their pot on us?? So no one eats the brownies.  The boys act like this hurts their feelings.  They mope around and complain about how they were just trying to be nice and no one trusts them to make brownies just for fun, yada yada.  So Autumn finally tries one-- and spits it out.  Evidently, the boys thought it'd be funny to make brownies with an extra cup of salt and an extra cup of baking soda.  Idiots.  So a waste of otherwise perfectly good brownies.  Executive Master Chef Dave would not like wasting food like that.

Ok, so it's painfully slow, right.  We're going to close early, all of my tables have cashed out, I'm cleaning up and getting ready to go-- this weird couple walks in and goes back and sits in billiards.  Didn't say hi, we want a pool table, we want drinks, nothing.  So I go back there and after some pleasantries and what not, they tell me they've just come from the tattoo parlor and before I can stop them they simultaneously lift up their shirts and show me their matching nipple piercings.  These are complete strangers and I have now seen their nipples.  They then order two chocolate martinis, tip me and they're on their way.  On their way out, the man is mumbling something under his breath about an escort service.  I love my job.

Tuesday March 22, 2005

Which musical is most like your life?

http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp?action=take&quiz_id=900

 

Monday March 21, 2005

Yeah, so I HAD hoped for a drama-free weekend.... I should have known better.  Friday night was pretty uneventful as everyone was recuperating from Thursday night and resting up for Saturday night.  Some of us got to sleep in a bed, some didn't... that's the way it goes.   Friday I had work, class, and work, and I think the girls went to the movie with some friends. 

Saturday we all got up, Becky wanted to sleep more, so Laura and I went to lunch with Keith at O'Charley's.  It was really pretty out so we went to see Don and pick up Ace.  Laura and I went to get our nails done while Ace the wonderdog behaved himself in the car.  When we got back.... well, Laura didn't REALLY need those leftover Chicken O'Tenders... Jeff was announcing at the softball game so we went to the ball park but Ace was unwelcome so we had to leave.  Instead, I called Lisa.  We went to see Lisa and Chris.  They have the cutest little boys in the world-- Jake and Jarrod and Jake's friend Trip was over and they have a dog, Jack.  Lisa's boys informed me that "Ace beats a Jack". haha.  They were cleaning up the yard so the dogs ran around and found some garbage to eat and we built this big pile of stuff to burn.  Then we all went inside and watched some of The Incredibles with Jarrod while Chris set fire to the big pile.  It was great.  The softball games were over so we headed back to Fayetteville.  then... another night of fun at Cool Water and Studio 716.  Details are excluded to protect the innocent.  You know who you are.

[photo removed by author]

We got no food, no jobs... our PETS' HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!

Janet is wearing a purple hippie headband today. 

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Friday March 18, 2005

So yesterday was St. Patrick's Day  and was pretty eventful. Laura and Becky are here for a few days and we went to eat lunch with Keith after Becky FINALLY got out of bed.  Then we drove to Springdale to see Ace.  Ace has never been on a leash, really, so I decided to take him out.  We went to PetSmart and let him pick out a toy and meet some new friends.  He likes the car.  Laura tried to let him out of the car at the gas station, but he's smarter than that. Also-- he already knows how to sit.  He's the smartest dog ever. 

I had to work at 5 so Becky and Laura and Keith and Jeff and Devon and her friends and Josh and his friends and Lesleigh and her sister and brother-in-law ALL came to see me at work.  It was fun.  I have some pictures of the night, but they're kinda hard to see.  I'll post them when I get them cleaned up a little. 

Today is the last day of school before Spring Break so there's really no one on campus except me.  I have this job.  I've worked off and on in the Orientation office since Summer 2001.  This semester, Peter asked me to help out a couple hours a week and I thought it was an OK idea.  1) I could use the extra money, as I started paying my cell phone and car insurance bills this semester, 2) I'm much more likely to go to class if I'm already on campus for something I'm getting paid to do.  So I DID work 8-11 MWF -- which recently changed to 9-12 MWF.  There's a world of difference between 8am and 9am-- trust me. It's surprisingly unimportant to me that I could be replaced by a monkey.  I'm here in case the phone rings, which is not often. And most of my time is spent talking to Tom or Laura or Heather online.  That and having random conversations with Janet-- the administrative assistant for the office.  Recent topics of conversations we've had include: she and her husband taking beekeeping classes, her trying to convince me to be a DJ at the student-run radio station on campus, her trying to get me to participate in a 5K (which is funny, if you know why), and her cooking chili in the office (which, again, is funny if you know why).  Janet is a piece of work.

Wednesday March 16, 2005

Happy Wednesday.  With impending Spring Break and all, I've been slacking on my xanga updates, but I'll try to catch you up.  I adopted a dog from the animal shelter and he's wonderful. I don't get to see him very much because he lives at Keith's house, but I'll post a picture of him (if I can figure out how, of course.)  His name is Ace. He's a mutt, but mostly collie and some chow.  He's really great, and I can't wait to spend more time with him.

Laura and Becky are coming to visit and will be here tonight.  Cant wait to see them! We have virtually no plans for the weekend, and just get to hang out. It'll be fun. I am counting on a pleasant, drama-free weekend with my sisters.

Lots going on, but I'm at "work" so I better go do something productive. Here's a picture of Ace............